Homing Pigeons 24Numb3rs xover
by am1019
Summary: Jack turns up at the Eppes home after his Very Bad Day needing help. Charlie and Don each has his own idea how to save him. Contains rough consensual sex. Slash. Don/Jack, Jack,Charlie friendship. Sequel to 'Always Travel in Pairs' in the Numb3rs section.


Fic: Homing Pigeons

Fic: Homing Pigeons  
By: am1019  
Rating: Adult  
Fandom: 24/Numb3rs  
Pairing: Charlie Eppes/Jack Bauer, Don Eppes/Jack Bauer  
Warnings: Rough consensual sex, sappiness  
Spoilers: 24: Takes place post season 6, but no spoilers. All you need to know is Jack has had a Very Bad Day. Again. Numb3rs: None, but takes place post season 4. (We are ignoring that the 24 timeline is set in the future.)  
Disclaimer: I have no connection to either show and, sadly, do not profit from writing fanfic.  
Notes: This is a sequel to **Always Travel in Pairs**, which is posted under the Numb3rs category and is a genfic about how these characters met and affected each other before they became the characters we know and love. So, it probably helps if you read that before reading this. Feedback much loved and appreciated.  
Summary: Jack turns up at the Eppes home after his Very Bad Day needing help. Charlie and Don each has his own idea how to save him.

"Charlie?"

Charlie pauses, chalk hovering a millimeter from the blackboard, its scraping momentarily stilled. He doesn't recognize the voice, which sounds worn and scratched as if the owner has recorded himself onto vinyl and played it to near break.

"Charlie, it's you, isn't it?"

The blackboards sway slightly and a man steps from behind them. His hair is cropped, dirty blond, and lines are set along his eyes and forehead, but Charlie knows him.

And because Charlie knows him, all he can do is stare. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again." Then, trying the name—"Jack."

Jack almost smiles—at least, he loses the half-sheepish expression, stops putting all his weight on one leg like he's about to sprint somewhere.

"Is it O.K. I'm here?"

Charlie grabs Jack's sleeves at his shoulders, chalk still in hand. "Of course. It's…it's great to see you. Can I get you anything to eat? You look kind of—I'm sorry, Jack, you look kind of… Are you all right?"

Jack's eyes closed when Charlie touched him, and now the feel of those light fingers, touching without pain, without urgency for the first time in he can't remember when, is enough to undo him. He brushes Charlie away before Charlie can extend the touch to its natural conclusion. He thinks he _would_ come undone if Charlie were to press against him in a hug and fit his curly head under Jack's chin.

"Don't tell anyone I'm here, O.K., Charlie?"

"Are you in trouble?" Confusion furrows Charlie's brow, but Jack sees something else, too, a spark of excitement and intelligence. Charlie is already figuring out how to save him.

"No." He is quick to reassure. "I just needed to get away. I don't know why, but I thought of your dad saying I was always welcome here. I felt like going somewhere I was welcome."

"You are." Charlie starts to touch him again—he doesn't touch Don this much and thinks again how close he and Jack once were—but Jack backs off.

"Don't. I'm sorry. I just—please don't touch me."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it."

"It's not you; it's me."

It sounds so ridiculous to both of them that neither pursues it. Charlie tucks his hands into his sleeves.

"What do you want, Jack?"

"To be normal." Jack grins a little, as if the answer surprises him.

Charlie gestures at the blackboard, the chalk he has palmed emerging and acting as a pointer at the foreign language of numbers scribbled over the boards.

"Everybody's normal is different."

"Wife. House. Two point five kids. Desk job." Jack stops. "Maybe not the desk job. I've always wanted to be, you know, an English teacher."

"Really?" Charlie had no idea. He can't remember Jack ever showing the slightest interest in literature.

"I have a good understanding of Hamlet."

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again." Charlie starts to reach for him again. He remembers in time and stops.

"I'm sorry I didn't keep in touch as well as I should have."

"At all."

"How was college?"

"It was fine. I didn't get beat up nearly so much."

"You made friends."

A glance away.

"Oh."

"Thirteen year old college students are mascots, not friends."

"I'm sorry, Charlie."

"Well. It's fine now. I've always had my math."

"Yeah."

"Do you want something to eat? Dad's in the kitchen, but…"

"No, it's—you don't need to clear your dad out because of me. I'd like to see him. And if there's lasagna…"

"There hasn't been lasagna since mom died."

"Margaret died? Charlie, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Charlie shrugs. "There's probably some leftover roast or something." He leads the way, and Jack follows him out of the garage.

As predicted, Alan is in the kitchen. He stands when Jack walks in, and Jack braces to introduce himself, but Alan simply nods and says Jack's name. "Good to see you again," he says, in the same tone that he probably uses to say 'welcome home' to his boys.

"Hello, sir," Jack says.

"It's still just 'Alan'. Unless the military has made you incapable of informality?" Alan smiles, and his eyes are just as warm as Jack remembered. He smiles back, and finds himself scratching the back of his neck, not knowing how to act, just when he first met this man who was kind to children, whether they were his or not.

"I'm sorry about Mrs. Eppes," Jack says.

"Thank you, Jack." Alan squeezes Jack's shoulder, and Jack manages not to flinch because he feels his own grief surging through the touch, threatening to drop him to his knees in this house he once secretly considered his home. As if he can feel the electricity, Alan changes the squeeze into a pat and retracts his hand.

"Are you staying here tonight?"

"I hadn't thought about it, but, if you're offering, I'd like to."

"Then we're offering," Charlie says. He's grinning, looking like a kid again, and Jack wonders what he's been doing in the almost twenty years since he last saw him—what does a prodigy do when he grows up?

"You can stay in Don's room," Alan says, and it's settled.

They eat. Charlie watches Jack; Jack pretends he isn't watching Charlie. Alan talks to both of them as if they aren't behaving like people who have never been to dinner in company before.

"I'm sorry I'm not good company," Jack says after another of Alan's anecdotes falls flat.

"Son, I have one boy who can't speak without turning every conversation into a math metaphor and another who gets called out so often he can't finish one. You're doing fine."

Jack nods and stuffs his mouth full of sandwich, and tries to ignore the blush that warms his cheeks, not over the compliment but because Alan has called him son. His own father used the word as a weapon, a way to tie Jack forever to his crimes.

"Are you talking about me?" Charlie says, coming back from wherever his mind has taken him.

Alan shakes his head and gets up. He clears the plates away.

"Does he need help?"

"He'd ask," Charlie says.

"You sure?"

"Oh." Hesitation crosses Charlie's face. Then he gets up and goes to the kitchen. Jack follows a moment later and finds Charlie with a towel standing next to Alan at the sink. Jack takes the towel. "I'll dry if you put away."

"Big man in charge now, eh, Jack?" Charlie says as he moves into his assigned position.

"How'd you know?"

Alan chuckles. "Don's the same. Charlie recognizes the voice of authority, don't you?"

Charlie rolls his eyes, but there's another kind of concern now, and Jack thinks it's a step closer to understanding. He pushes the thought away and concentrates on creating a moment with a family. Just like when he was a kid, he is slotting himself into the domesticity of the Eppeses and finding that, if he allows it, they will let him fit.

They all orient towards the kitchen door when they hear someone come into the house. Jack's hand moves to his hip for the gun he isn't carrying.

"Dad? Charlie?" Don shouts from the sitting room.

"In here," Alan calls back.

Jack, slowly, relaxes. Don enters a moment later, apologizing for missing dinner and prompting Alan to remind him that his timing, for once, is off. Don is smiling when he notices Jack and bursts forth with a loud "Jackie!", as if he and Jack were friends, rather than just friendly all those years ago. Jack nods and returns the smile as best he can.

He sees what they mean about Don being the voice of authority. It oozes from him, and he recognizes himself in it.

"Are you staying tonight?" Don asks.

"I'd like to," Jack says.

"We were going to put him in your room, Donny, but if you're staying, then…" Alan says.

"I can take the couch," Don says. "Jack should have my room."

Jack starts to protest, but a look from Don silences him. It is not authority in it but harsh understanding, as if he knows why Jack is there, as if he knows what Jack needs, that keeps Jack quiet.  
"Well, looks like you have everything under control here," Don says. He grins and exits. A moment later they hear the sound of a football game on the television. Alan and Charlie give twin groans. Even Jack finds it difficult to suppress a smile.

He goes to bed after the dishes are done. Charlie hovers for a bit and looks like he wants to talk, but Jack hasn't slept in he doesn't know how long without seeing _her_, and he thinks that maybe, in this bed, in this house, he can. He makes his excuses, and Charlie claims to understand because he says something about getting back to the garage and leaves him alone.

Jack is wrong. The nightmares start before he is asleep. He pushes through them, the Chinese prison, the torture, the peace (short-lived) over being his country's sacrificial lamb, his father, his brother, his father again, his nephew, Audrey, Audrey, Audrey, and how even when he stops running from death, even when he stops right in front of it and says "Here I am", it won't take him.

A noise sparks Jack's consciousness. He is on his feet before his eyes are fully opened. He hears someone stumble in the darkness and a soft grunt. He makes out the shape of a man. Before he can protest, the man flips the lights. They catch Jack naked. He doesn't bother covering himself, can't decide what he would go for first, his cock or his scars. He can see now that it's Don standing there, and finds that some part of him knew he would be from the moment Don gave up his bedroom to him. He can also see that Don is cataloguing him, his scars, creating a history for him in the years since they've seen each other. He keeps his eyes on Don's face. Don steps forward. He touches a permanent line that crosses from Jack's chest around to his back. He is not hesitant like Charlie, nor gentle like Alan, but firm, practical, and sure of his right to do what he is doing. Because of this, perhaps, Jack lets him.

He remembers the gawky athlete from years ago, and tries to find him in the man he sees now. Instead, he sees a seriousness that the boy Don was never knew, as if this man has looked back on his life and seen where he went wrong. Don's hand travels up Jack's side, keeping the pressure steady. Rather than watch its track, Don watches Jack's eyes for a reaction. Jack offers none. When Don reaches Jack's neck, he pulls back and Jack releases a breath he hadn't known he was holding. He catches the tiniest of smirks on Don's face before it is obscured by Don's shirt as he pulls it over his head and off. The pants follow and boxers, just as quickly. Now Jack takes his turn, touching the scars that line Don's hips, and one on his shoulder that he recognizes immediately as a bullet wound. They are not as noticeable as Jack's. Their stories to do not scream so loudly as his, but they shriek nonetheless, and Jack sinks to his knees and mouths a raised centimeter of skin on Don's belly to the left and below his navel. Don keeps his hands at his sides, and Jack knows they're on the same page. There will be no gentle carding of hands through hair, no playful nibbles tonight. There will be no movement that is not decisive or that leaves room for question or doubt. There will be no questions but one.

"I'm going to fuck you," Don says, rendering the lone question into a statement.

At the words, blood rushes to Jack's groin and he responds by biting Don's hip. The flesh breaks beneath his teeth, and he tastes copper before Don pushes him backwards. He falls on his ass, looking up. Don doesn't look angry. Pinpricks of blood bubble where Jack's mouth was.

"Or we could talk," Don says, "if you're more into that."

Jack turns to the side and spits lightly on the floor, expelling the taste of Don's skin. "No."

"Didn't think so." They understand each other. Talking is useless when the guilt is pure. That can come later, by choice or by requirement, when the shields are up and the therapist is paid to break through them. Jack spits on his fingers. Don watches without expression as Jack pulls his cock aside with his other hand and pushes two wet fingers inside himself. He fucks himself without any help from Don, staring at him all the while. Finally, as Jack is starting to get hard, Don hauls him up by the elbow, forcing the fingers out, and maneuvers him onto the bed on his stomach. Jack pulls his knees in without being told as Don leans down and spits, twice, into him. He feels it sliding inside him, warm and wet, and then Don's cock is there, too, pushing into the place his fingers reached and deeper. Don doesn't wait for comfort, for Jack's body to adjust. He keeps the pressure steady, pausing only when he has to. Jack does nothing to make it easier on himself. There is no shifting, no spreading his knees, no attempt to move away. He'll bleed from this, and he doesn't mind.

Don is folded over Jack's back, his mouth just touching Jack's neck. Jack arches, turns, and then, teeth catch his shoulder and clamp down. The gasp that wrenches its way out of Jack's throat starts somewhere in his stomach like a gut punch. Don stops biting and licks the wound, the gentleness in stark contrast to the snap of his hips and the steady, full pain that it causes with each thrust. He pulls Jack's head back by the short hair over his forehead, so Jack looks into his eyes, turned upside down by the angle.

"More," he chokes. It's not enough. This pain, not nearly enough.

"Everything. Is your. Fault." Don hisses out the words that make the difference, and Jack collapses onto his elbows. Something changes, a wisp of air, and Don stops, half in, half out, and holding himself just above Jack, so when he exhales, Jack can feel Don's chest hair grazing his back. "Charlie's outside the door. Do you want to stop?"

Jack's answer is to thrust backwards and force Don all the way into him. "Hurt me," he says, whispering and desperate and not caring if Charlie hears. Even so, he keeps his head turned from the door because he does not want to see even a sliver of Charlie's shape hovering there.

Don inhales, and snaps his hips. His fingers sink into the bend of Jack's hips, and Jack bites the inside of his elbow to keep from yelling.

"You are responsible. It all went wrong because of you." Don falls forward, too, grabbing and tugging Jack back up, and pushing his fingers into Jack's mouth. They both know that Jack will not bite. He sucks instead, as if he is obeying a command that only he and Don understand. Don pulls Jack up again, heaves the two of them backwards so Jack is sitting on Don's lap, Don still thrusting into him in the confined space between Don's thighs and Jack's. Don fists Jack's cock and starts to jerk him, fast and rough as the fuck. He pushes his other arm beneath Jack's armpit and hooks it up over Jack's shoulder to keep him upright. Don comes first, moaning for the first and only time, and then Jack shudders and Don's hand is splattered in wet. He releases him. They roll apart.

Jack gets up without a word and walks out. He sees Charlie in the darkness of his own room, as if he is waiting to be told to go to bed. Jack goes to the bathroom and closes the door. He turns the shower on, cold. He tries to feel alive, but he doesn't know how. Someone comes in and sits on the toilet. When the person doesn't do his business and leave, Jack suspects it's Don waiting for the shower.

When he pulls the curtain back, he sees Charlie sitting with his hands clasped between his knees. He turns the water off and reaches over Charlie's head for a towel. He thinks about telling Charlie not to look, but he knows that Charlie's curiosity would win over no matter what he said, and anyway, he's already looking, probably graphing the scars into something that makes sense. If Jack ever gets drunk enough, he'll ask Charlie to explain it. It would be nice, he thinks, to know that there was order to himself. He dries himself and tries to think of what he's supposed to say.

"Don won't let me hug him," Charlie says. He is talking to his knees, it seems. "I used to think it was because we were men, but I know he doesn't really think of me as adult. I'm still his little brother. Always will be. It's because of his work. He doesn't want the bad bits of it to rub off on me. He keeps it locked up. He thinks I don't know that he hurts himself, like he did with you tonight. You're the same as him, so if you think I don't understand you, you're wrong. But, I want you to know that what you're doing isn't going to help you. When I have a problem, I disappear, in my mind. I go where there's only math, and it upsets people, Don especially, but that's what I know to do. I need the time to myself, to get myself right. You and Don get hurt and you can't control it, so you hurt yourselves in a way that you can. Except it's not going to help you. Either of you. You're smart, Jack. Don't make me explain the probability against one hurt canceling out the other. You should know it already."

"Charlie."

"It wasn't your fault. You did what you could, the best you could. You are always welcome here."

Charlie gets up, having delivered the entire speech hunched forward, never once looking at Jack. Still, without looking, he starts for the door. He pauses. "Get dressed and meet me in my room. Five minutes."

Jack stares after him. Don appears, dressed, his hair mussed. "He never said that to me," he says. In the light, Jack can see the crow's feet around his eyes. Agent work has made them both old.

"Would it have made a difference?" Jack asks.

"Charlie does work for us sometimes. I try to protect him but…he's his own man."

"He was a sensitive kid."

"Still is."

"And you think it's a good idea…"

"I think you should go meet Charlie like he said."

Don leaves, and Jack hears him going down the stairs. He heads back to Don's room for his clothes. When he gets to Charlie's room, Charlie is waiting with a pair of sleeping bags. He shoves one into Jack's arms. "Come on."

They go through the house in silence, leaving the lights off. When Jack bumps into a table, Charlie takes Jack's wrist in his hand and pulls him along behind. The moon is out, and stars, so Jack's eyes adjust to the darkness in the backyard as Charlie unfurls his sleeping bag and sits down. Jack does the same.

"Remember when we used to do this?" Charlie stretches out on his back. "I used to map the stars."

"Is that what you were doing?" Jack lies down, too.

"Yes. What about you?"

Jack wants to tell him that in this yard he felt safe for the first time in his life, but just thinking it makes it feel untrue. "Charlie…"

"It's O.K. I understand."

He doesn't, not at all, but Jack isn't going to fill him in on it. The stars blaze overhead. Jack reaches over and touches Charlie's side. It's an offering, of sorts—an attempt to reach the peace Charlie seems to think he's denying himself. Charlie doesn't move, so Jack leaves his hand there. A few beats more and he feels Charlie's hand on his side, too. He flinches, and forces himself not to.

"Don't worry, Jack," Charlie says. "Sometimes this is the closest I get to a hug, too."

Jack stares at the sky until Charlie's hand works beneath his shirt and finds the scar on his chest. It settles there, warm and unassuming. Then it pushes forward, sliding along Jack's torso and bringing Charlie's arm and body with it. Jack doesn't move. He tells himself that he is not terrified.

"Charlie…"

"I know."

Charlie doesn't do anything more, but enough of his weight is on Jack's body that Jack can't tell who is holding who, and this makes it O.K.

"Go to sleep, Jack," Charlie says. "You're home now."

Jack feels his eyelids slowly close.

The End


End file.
